The Seeker's Guide: Making Your Life a Spiritual Adventure - Softcover

"Elizabeth Lesser has witnessed the search for God in America from a front-row seat. As both an observer and a participant, she is funny, profoundly moving, and simply brilliant. This is a book for anyone who wants to read their own spiritual story more clearly and find the inner compass that can lead them home."
-Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., author of Kitchen Table Wisdom

Why I wrote The New American Spirituality
Hello readers, I've often wondered what moves authors to write their books, so I thought I'd share with you why I came to write The New American Spirituality. Though a book is born of many impulses, most authors can tell you of its symbolic moment of conception. That moment came for me several summers ago, eating lunch in the faculty dining room, at Omega Institue, the education and retreat center I co-founded in 1977. Over the years I have eaten lunch hundreds of times in that room, moderating discussions betweem medical doctors and psychic healers, jazz drummers and idigenous shamans, Hindu swamis and Jewish rabbis, Zen monks and business executives. At this particular lunch I was sitting next to Babtunde Olatunji, the Nigerian drum master whom some call the father of the world music movement. Wearing his traditional West African brocade robes and hat, Baba was talking to me about America, his home for the past forty years. "You know why I love this country?" he asked me."Well, look at these people. Look at how free they are to state their beliefs; look at how the spirit of one kind of person flows into the spirit of another kind. And listen to the beautiful music they make together." I looked around the table. At one end was the American poet Allen Ginsberg, sitting between Gelek Rinpoche, a Tibetan Lama, and Joseph Shabalala, the South African leader of Ladysmith Black Mambazo. They were talking about their twin passions -- politics and spirituality. At the other end of the table was the one-time heavywight champion of the world, Floyd Patterson, picking over his plate of tofu salad, discussing his workshop, The Tao of Boxing, with a Chinese tai chi master, a tiny woman dressed in black pajamas. Next to them sat Huston Smith, the renowned authority on the history of religions, engaged in coversation with Ysaye Barnwell of the gospel group Sweet Honey in the Rock, and John Mohawk, a Seneca author and spiritual leader. Cataching bits and pieces of conversations, I asked Baba Olatunji, "So, what do you think about all of this? All of these traditions meeting and merging?" Baba leaned back and surveyed the scene again and announced, "This is a new kind of spirituality. It's American and one day it will be the world." An American spirituality -- I liked that concept. It described my own spiritual life, something I had never been able to label. I had been actively searching for God since childhood. My path wove through the peaks and valleys of many psychotherapy, philosophy, mythology, science. My search had all of the open-minded, free. It included ten years of discipleship with an Eastern meditation teacher; a deep immersion into Christian, Jewish, and Islamic mysticism; extended work with a psychotherapist; and study with a variety of teachers in conciousness work, healing, and Western philosophy. For 25 years I had been searching -- not to become a Chirstian or a Jew or a Muslim; a Buddhist, or a Sikh or a Hindu -- but to become a spiritual person, here in America at the turn of the 21st century. And so, after my lunch with Baba Olatunji, I set out to research and write this book. Of course, it didn't all fall neatly together like it does in the retelling, Americans, born and raised on a diet of individuality, diversity, and democracy, we have an appetite for following our own hearts. In titling this book The New American Spirituality, I realize that some will criticize the use of the words NEW and AMERICAN -- NEW, because spirituality has been a longing in all people, throughout all of history; AMERICAN because America's brash materialism and excessive individualism often seem at odds with the spiritual impulse. While I share these concerns, I also believe that the American impulse IS new, and that it is also a profoundly spiritual endeavor. In democratizing the spiritual search, and in diversifying the ways of explaining, expressing, and celebrating the mysteries of life and death, America has indeed created a new tradition, research the book, I didn't realize how much of my own story the book would ask me to divulge -- especially the difficult parts, the foolish parts, the embarrassing parts. But I quickly came to see that a book about the my life have more meaning and joy? What happens when I die? Without honest, real-life examples to accompany theories and practices, spiritual literature betrays how difficult and deeply moving the search can be. I include many stories in the book of my attempts to "walk my talk" step-parenting; about my work as a midwife and my experiences at the death beds of friends and family members. I share discouraging experiences with spritual teachers and religious leaders, as well as stories that express gratitude and honor for the teachers and teachings that have changed my life.I share these stories to demonstrate that we are all more alike than unalike, and that to hide our suffering and difficulties from each other is The spiritual quest is different for each one of us, and it changes as we change. As the comedian George Carlin says, "Just when I found out the meaning of life, they changed it." To walk a path that really helps us heal and grow, we must know who we are and what our unique story is. Therefore, the third story in the book belongs to the reader. Ingrediaents for creating a path thorugh the mysteries of life are offered here, and it is my hope that you will use them to chart a course all your own. Over my 20 years at Omega Institute, as a program director, administrator, andteacher, I have been asked by many people, "Who among the spiriutal teachers, religious leaders, healers, and schools of thought to be trusted?" "One tradition say do this, the other says just the opposite." "How do I know if I am making progress?" I wrote this book to help you find what really works for you -- what enlivens you, what brings you peace, what awakens your heart and soul to meaning, and what can lead you to a fearless attitude toward life and death.